The restart of the world’s largest nuclear power plant was suspended just hours after the process began, its operator said, but the reactor remained “stable”.
Operations to relaunch a reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in Niigata province, closed since the 2011 Fukushima disaster, began late Wednesday after it received the final green light from the nuclear regulator despite divided public opinion.
“An alarm from the monitoring system ... sounded during the reactor startup procedures, and operations are currently suspended,” said Takashi Kobayashi, a spokesperson for operator Tokyo Electric (Tepco), yesterday.
The reactor “is stable and there is no radioactive impact outside”, he said, adding that the operator is “currently investigating the cause” of the incident and is unable to say when operations will resume.
The restart, initially scheduled for Tuesday, had been pushed back after a technical issue related to a reactor alarm was detected last weekend – a problem that was resolved on Sunday, according to Tepco.
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is the world’s biggest nuclear power plant by potential capacity, although just one reactor of seven was restarted.
The facility was taken offline when Japan pulled the plug on nuclear power after a colossal quake and tsunami sent three reactors at the Fukushima atomic plant into meltdown in 2011.
However, Japan now wants to revive atomic energy to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and meet growing energy needs from artificial intelligence. — AFP
